


Forever and Ever

by theparanoidwriter



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Death, background character with cancer, death mention, heads up for severe empaths, jean is a geography dork, loss of loved one mention, well kinda sorta, winnie the pooh inspired modern times au, you will see what I mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparanoidwriter/pseuds/theparanoidwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>.3. enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Forever and Ever

**Author's Note:**

> .3. enjoy!

Marco would swear up and down that their first meeting was freshmen year in the cafeteria, but Jean knows the truth. They first met years before that in elementary school.

It was Halloween and a crowd of trick or treaters had cut through and in doing so, separated him from his parents. By the time they had bustled away, the street both in front of and behind him was empty.

As much as he liked to play tough, he was seven and alone on Halloween night. He stepped in the direction he had last seen his parents. A skeleton popped out of the lawn beside him and sent him to his feet, screaming. He kicked the concrete and scuffed his shoe in his effort to distance himself from the object of his terror. He stopped only when his back bumped into something solid. Shaking, he had slowly looked over his shoulder to see a much bigger skeleton looking down at him. His eyes shot open wide as he screamed again falling onto his back. He had screamed out, he can’t remember what, or rather he would save himself the embarrassment, but he remembered that he dragged himself onto his stomach just as a skeletal hand rested on his shoulder.

The feeling of the cold, bony fingers on his shoulder were accompanied by hot breath across his ear. He hadn’t hesitated a second; he jerked his shoulder away, pushed himself up onto his feet and booked it. All around him, shrieks and howls rang out in the night. He heard a blend of witches cackling, zombies moaning, and ghosts booing, and as he passed by one house – an inferno of deep maniacal laughter.

He had ran until his legs buckled, his knees hit the ground and a jolt ran through his body. He grit his teeth then hugged his knees to his chest, tears forming in his eyes. Jean had looked around and found he was in a completely unfamiliar neighborhood, one with even more ghouls running around, the screeching echoing off the buildings.

A round of witch’s cackles blasted from his right, but his body had locked itself there. His arms wouldn’t move and his legs, now bleeding which he could see through the tear in his jeans, had yet to forgive him for his stunt. The only movement he could muster was the trembling in all his limbs and the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest, ready to burst out like the skeleton. He shrank further into himself, allowed at least that movement, so as to prevent it from escaping.  

He had watched in slow motion as the tears that rushed down his face plopped down onto his bare skin, leaving the blood watery. He had watched as the tears left the skin on his knee looking like the cells did in the scopes in the movies, all the lines clear. He had watched until the lines and blood all began to bend and sway and blur, tears in rapid fire now as his entire body trembled violently. He coaxed the images to return, whimpered out a small call for them before his breath caught in his throat.

Ehehehehehhe!

Boooo!

Nhhhhhhhn~

Oooooowwooooooooooooooooooo!

MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

They were everywhere. To his left. His right. Above. Below. Inside and outside. He couldn’t get them out of his head, he wanted them out of his head. He didn’t want any sounds, any voices in his head.

He tried to breathe out hard as if that might expel the sounds and purge his mind of them and the horror they brought. All that came out was a small, pitiful squeak.

The voices stayed. They stayed and he could see them dancing around him. In the dark, he swore he could make out the skirts of the witch’s dress. See her purple and green striped stockings. Her bent nose, spotted with warts and moles and all those icky things. Then behind her he saw the werewolf - a giant wolf, ten times his size, long brown fur blowing lightly in the breeze. Its eyes glowing golden in the dark of the night, saliva dangled down from its fangs, fangs the size of his head. To its left, was a male zombie, hair short and black, missing half of his face, brain and skull exposed while his ribcage, pearly white exposed along his right side. His clothes were tattered and blood splatters coated his body. To his right, a pale white cover sheet ghost that glimmered, not quite there.

And a voice. A disembodied voice. Laughing evilly. A Satanic voice if he had to put a name to it. He could feel the heat from the hellfire lapping at his toes and tried to scream, an invisible force pressing down on his throat.

All the voices drew closer as did their forms, the sound amplified tenfold and he sat there thrashing and trembling, trying to voice something. Anything. His efforts only coaxed more laughter. Encouraged them.

Jean’s foot had been burning and he tensed up; he expected the disembodied voice to appear there and claim him.

Then he heard another voice, this time one he didn’t have a name for. This voice was soft, gentle, concerned, and asking him something.

“Would you like some chocolate?”

Jean blinked and followed the sound of the voice to find a young boy around his own age crouched before him, hand extended, palm out, a piece of candy in it.He blinked again and looked around him to find that they were all gone. He was all alone next to a tree on a street with this boy before him. Was he an illusion too?

The boy standing before him was in costume, a headband with yellow round ears atop, and orange yellow face paint that while it had been caked on, still couldn’t hide the splattering of freckles that ran amuck on his face. He had more of that yellow orange paint down his hands and on his belly underneath the short red T-shirt that he wore. What kind of costume was this, anyway?

Yellow face continued to smile on at him, candy still out and offered as Jean sat there in silence.

He didn’t look particularly evil, so Jean chanced it. He found he was able to stretch his arm out and scooped up the chocolate. He kept it in his hand, eyes still focused on the strange boy before him with freckles like a stampede running all over his body. His fingers visibly shook as he removed the chocolate from his wrapper then slowly but surely raised it up to his mouth.

He expected the boy to say something, do something, but he didn’t. Only smiled kindly ever more. And when he popped the candy in his mouth and began to chew, the sensation starting to return in his body, the boy before him grinned, flashing a toothy smile. He was missing the same side tooth that Jean was.

He wasn’t sure if he was laughing at that, or he was laughing deliriously, glad that the boy wasn’t another illusion, or the ridiculous paint all over his body, but he was laughing. He was laughing and he could breathe again. He laughed and laughed until the air stopped a moment; he had forgotten about the chocolate still in his mouth. He swallowed it down and managed to quiet his laughing storm.

The boy waited patiently until Jean was silent again then reached behind himself and pulled out a small pumpkin bucket. “I have some more if you want them.” He held out the bucket to Jean then after realizing that Jean might still be frightened, placed it on the ground before him and pushed it lightly across the gap to him.

They sat in silence several minutes as Jean slowly ate one. Then another. A third, fourth, fifth. Each time he looked at the boy; even if he wasn’t some sort of demon,  no kid eagerly shared their candy, and not this much. But the boy never said a word. Not when Jean had eaten his third piece, nor when he was halfway through with the bucket. He only sat, completely content just watching the boy.

Jean ate until he was full then realized he could fully move his body again and the pounding in his head that he thought had just been the voices, had gone away. He wiggled his toes and fingers, marched in place. All of them worked just fine again, and his laughing fit earlier had told him his breath had returned. That left just one thing - his voice.

“What’s your dumb costume, anyways?”

Yellow Face’s smile shrank into an ‘o’ that quickly turned into a smile once again as he laughed, which got a scowl from Jean.

He didn’t think it was so funny. He really couldn’t tell what this kid’s costume was. Was he some sort of Teletubby? Or some cartoon character or a really bad spongebob or what?

The boy stopped laughing and started to answer when another voice called out,”Marco! There you are.”

A woman walked over and bent to face level, brushing back the black hair that fell forwards, freckles across her knuckles.  
“I told you to wait by the pumpkin, sweetheart. I’ve been looking for you for the last ten minutes!”

She crushed him to her chest, exhaling a heavy sigh of relief.

Marco’s head drooped. “Sorry, Mommy. I saw this boy and he looked scared. So I came to help him.” His last words were accompanied with lifting his head again and gazing over at Jean.

Marco’s mother pulled away and followed his gaze to find Jean still sitting there against the tree, dried blood on his knee, a pile of candy wrappers next to him. He must have looked a mess because in one instant her look went from curious to mortified and she made her way over to him.  
“Sweetie, are you alright? You’re sweating, and your knee…. Where are your parents?”

Jean swallowed the lump in his throat he hadn’t known had even been there. He had completely forgotten that he had lost his parents. Tears welled up anew as he managed out, “ I lost them! We we were trick -hic- or treating a-and then these t-teenagers w-went by a-and they were g-gone.”  
Marco’s mother brought her purse closer and dug through it until she found some tissue, taking out a sheet and gently wiping the tears falling down Jean’s face.

Jean knew he should calm down but he didn’t even know where he was. He was far from home and how would his parents ever know to look for him here? “I- I g-got sp-sp-spooked b-by a sk-skully-skele- a-and I, I ran a-and -hic- I want to g-go home!”

He raised a confused eyebrow a second when the woman hugged him tight, rubbing circles in his back and said nothing, only waited until his hiccoughs stopped and the sobbing ended. She pulled away then and Jean felt guilty as he watched the trails of snot he had left in this nice lady’s shirt.

She didn’t say anything about the snot, only brought out more tissue for him, offering him one to blow his nose. She waited patiently as he did then grabbed a small tube of something which she squeezed onto another tissue. It was clear and reminded him of his parents toothpaste. She cleaned his knee with one tissue then rubbed the toothpaste stuff onto his knee. It stung a moment then felt a lot better.

Marco stood by his mother, both of them smiling at the distraught boy.

“Do you know your home address?”

Jean nodded.

His mother had asked the question, but it was Marco who took Jean’s hand and helped him up then gave a slight tug and beamed back. “Then let’s get you home.”

Jean gave them his address and fortunately they had known where his house was, even if it was halfway across town. Neither Marco nor his mother complained one bit, both checking on him that he was still there and asking if he was dizzy or needed anything.

Jean turned down each offer, worn out now and eager to get home. They walked down the same street he had fled but he didn’t notice any of the cackling or howls. There, walking with Marco’s hand in his and his words blocked them all out. He never even noticed he was home until Marco lightly nudged his shoulder.

The front room light was on. Somebody was home, but the car was missing. One of them had gone out to look for him. Jean froze; they both worked early and now they were up even later than planned because he had run away. Fear shifted into guilt and his limbs felt heavy again. He didn’t want to go back home, didn’t want even more guilt as he saw them fighting back heavy eyelids.

But Marco urged him on, pulling him forward again and up the driveway. Jean shuffled behind him and was set to hide away behind Marco forever when his mother rang the doorbell. He tensed as he heard footsteps followed shortly by the deadbolt being unlocked. Light flooded the doorstep and revealed his mother’s form in the light, a form he saw only a few seconds before he was scooped up and crushed to her chest.

“My baby! There you are! We’ve been worried sick!”

Jean pressed his face into her shoulder, not wanting to face anybody. He drowned his face in the cotton of her shirt and listened while she thanked Marco’s mother.

“Oh, I’m just glad he’s home. You know, I couldn’t find my Marco for ten minutes but lo and behold he had wandered off because he saw how frightened your son was. He deserves all the thanks.”

Jean was jostled as his mother switched him to one arm so she could bend down and hug Marco.

“Oh, thank you so much sweetie! Is there anything I can do?”

Ever a saint, Marco had turned down her offers to give him anything, only wishing her a good night.

After several tired tries to reward either of the two, his mother gave up and thanked them one last time before wishing them a good night and happy Halloween.

“Good night!”  
Then a smaller voice and a light tug on his jeans.

Jean pulled out from the safety of his mother’s shirt and looked down to see Marco smiling gently at him.   
“Good night.”  
He felt heat rush to his cheeks as he returned it, “Good night, Marco.” He quickly buried his face into his mother’s shirt again and if not for her placing him down after several bone crushing seconds of hugs.

He turned to avoid the concern in her face just in time to catch the last glimpses of Marco’s retreating form and it was then that Jean realized what Marco’s costume had been.

Yellow ears, yellow arms and legs, the red shirt, and a small stub of a tail on his bottom. Winnie the Pooh.

*****

I didn’t know anything else about Marco back then except that he was 1) a fucking saint; 2) a fucking saint; and 3) a fucking saint. A saint in a Winnie the Pooh costume.

We moved not long after that so I clung to the only thing I could of the freckled child that had quickly become my hero - Winnie the Pooh. And man, was I obsessed. I collected the books, had the dolls, bought all the movies, nagged my mom to take me to them in theatres three or four times.

I think my parents only went along with my craze as I entered my teenage years only because they noticed how lost I was without it. I would stop in mid-sentence and drop to the floor, zapped of any and all energy at random points; I would wake up and then roll back around and refuse to get up even after my mother resorted to dumping ice cold water on me; I would lie there in my bed, damp sheets sticking to my legs, and wonder when or if I might ever see him again. But no amount of Winnie the Pooh could ever amount to Marco, my Marco.

As thick skulled as people take me for, I had realized  a few years back that Marco meant something extra special,and even though I knew so little of him, I knew I wanted to see him again. You can say all you want that maybe I just wanted to find him and thank him, but I found my mind on him more often than it should be. I wondered where he was now, if he had friends (wait, the guy was a saint, of course he did), what he did with his friends, what he did over the summer. Sometimes I wondered if he had come to me especially or if he made a habit of wandering off to help out crazy kids like me.

And that summer before my freshmen year in high school when we moved back to our old town, when I found myself imagining how Marco must look now...He probably had glasses with big frames and braces, tall but scrawny, lugging around a big ass backpack. What a loser. Probably would walk into the halls and see that high school is a lot different, slammed into a locker by oafish jocks who don’t have enough brains to tell that he’s a good guy. Their rancid breath fogging up his glasses and he could try to pull that kind bullshit but it wouldn’t work. That’s when I would come to the rescue, a knight in shining armor and repay the favor, dismount his steed and punch the idiots’ faces in. Then I would turn to Marco and ask him, “Hey, remember me?” before I kissed his fucking socks off.

I knew I was in deep.

However, that’s not how it went at all. In fact, it was pretty much the reverse - a group of jocks had rushed me the moment I stepped out of my geology classroom. My shoulder had hit the locker and it whined in protest at the weight and pressure as one of the biggest of the football team pressed his forehead against my own, glaring down.   
“Kirsch-slime, you remember me, don’t you?”

To be fucking honest, I didn’t. And I still don’t remember to this day, I was a bit focused on the fucking boulder on my head, though the crack I heard from my shoulder was pretty worrying too.

Big, mean, and ugly had said something but I didn’t catch it, which of course, he didn’t appreciate. Yeah, well, I sure as hell didn’t appreciate the brain damage I’m sure he did when he jerked my head forwards then slammed it against the locker door.

Fuck. Pretty sure I heard a crack.

“Slime, you fucking listening to me?”

I didn’t answer soon enough and then wow, I don’t know what the fuck shapes were dancing before my eyes, but I figured they had made their way out from the Grand Canyon in my skull. They were pretty big too, big enough that they blocked out the jock’s fist from my view so I never knew it was coming until I felt the crunch of my nose and Ol’ Faithful erupted with red.

I had missed what came directly after that because unfortunately my eyes and nose don’t have a windshield wiper and I was literally seeing red. I just know that one moment I was unleashing Mount Vesuvius all over the lockers and floor and the next I was staring straight into two familiar brown eyes. Their owner had helped me stand up and after the tornado spinning in my head came to a stop, I looked around and found that the entire flock of jocks had left. Only there was one more in a jacket standing right in front of me, brown eyes ablaze with concern.

Standing up straight didn’t go over too well with my head and an earthquake pounded in my head somewhere along 8.0 on the Richter scale. When my balance gave out and I fell forward, the male caught me in his arms. I had closed my eyes to gain some focus and opened them again to find that, for the second time, Marco had rescued me. When I was able to stand on my own again, he fished in the pocket of his Varsity jacket and pulled out - you guessed it, a fucking chocolate, and offered it to me.

And to top it all off? The school colors just had to be that shade of red and that shade of yellow. It had the weirdest design that left it looking as if Marco was wearing that same red cropped top ontop his yellow painted limbs. Unbe-fucking-lievable. Here was my knight in shining armor, only he wasn’t in armor, he was in a different version of his Winnie the Pooh costume. As if my obsession needed more help.

Once again, he didn’t say anything, only sat there with that dumb smile on his face until after I managed to clumsily unwrap the chocolate and eat it. Then he offered me another one. For fuck’s sake! He didn’t stop until the fogginess started to fade away in my brain, almost as if he knew.

“What’s with the fucking jacket?”

I had meant because it was a varsity jacket and he had to be a freshmen didn’t he? The moment I remembered my first remark back then my face went red and I clasped my hand over my mouth, determined not to make any more accidental parallels, this was all embarrassing enough.

My tone had been harsh, but then again it almost always was to people who didn’t know any better, but Marco, he always knew better, or maybe he had forgiven me already. Whatever the case, the dork answered, “Oh, I’m on the football team.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

Fuck. That was meant to be kept as a thought.

Big surprise, it didn’t stop Marco one bit who smiled reassuringly and said, “My stepdad was really into football and he always played with me. I joined the team for him and they said I was good enough to make varsity, I guess.” He had scratched his nose on those last few words, his nervous twitch. His hand didn’t stay there too long though before he brought it forward hand extended and poised for a shake.

Imagine my surprise when I went to shake his hand and found myself pulled forward and into a tight hug - not that I’m complaining. I had forgotten how it felt having my hand in Marco’s but I remembered it then and then some as I let myself melt into his strong arms. It was a brief hug though because Marco pulled away and scratched at his nose again, light red spreading across his face as he cast his gaze down at the floor.  
“Sorry, my stepdad, he was, uh, real big on hugs.”

“No, man, it’s uh, it’s cool. Like ice cool. Like Antarctic cool.”

Marco got a chuckle out of that.

“My mom will never let me go in the mornings. I swear I’m always ten minutes late because she keeps dragging me back in for something and she gives hugs like no tomorrow. Texts every ten minutes, afraid she’s going to lose me.”

I turned back to the locker to pick up my things and groaned at the sight of them scattered all over the floor; it resembled the aftermath of a hurricane, my lunch had spilled and tumbled out, a sticky mess against the debris. Groaning wasn’t going to clean it all up though, better get to picking it up. Two shoes approached the mess join shortly by Marco’s form as he squatted to help with cleanup.

“She did lose me once, on Halloween,” it all just spewed out my mouth before I could even stop it, “and now it’s like she’s gone crazy. Even though it’s been like 8 years since it happened.” I spotted my Winnie the Pooh notebook dangerously close to Marco’s view and snatched it up, bending the corner as I stuffed it into my bag.  I couldn’t chance him or anybody else seeing it.

Marco handed me three more notebooks, the last of the mess and we both stood up. He didn’t miss a beat. “Some people care too much, I think it’s called love.”

I swear to fucking God my eyes bulged and popped off and I was trapped under ice because I froze at that quote,a  quote I knew all too well. He hadn’t...had he? Just, just play it cool, Kirschtein.

“Hah?”

“Winnie the Pooh, my stepdad loved him. We have all the movies at my house if you want to come over and watch them this weekend?”

“Uhm, s-sure.”

“Great! Here, let me give you my address.” He dug in his backpack, taking out a sticky note and writing in sprawling handwriting the numbers and street name. He handed it to me and gave me such a dorky grin and asked, “Is Saturday at 11:00 okay?”

“A.m? Uh, yeah, totally.”

“See you then!”

*******

It all could have gone terribly horrible, all of it an elaborate trick to make me, Jean Kirschtein, look like the complete and total loser that I was. I could have shown up and been tarred and feathered or shoved in some dumpster, or beaten and left in some dark alleyway until somebody found me. But none of that happened.

I showed up at his house at 11:00 in the fucking morning, coffee in hand, the urge to murder anybody who got too close still a small blip in my brain, not yet drowned out by caffeine. I made out the family name plaque above the doorbell as I waited for somebody to answer the door: Bodt. Huh, sounded a lot like butt, not that I had any room to mock last names; I bet people never tried spelling his ten times before giving up and writing a simple K.

It all went fairly smoothly, he showed me to his room which was more like a broom closet than an actual room. Hell, the whole house itself could scarcely be considered two average sized rooms and I counted three doors.

.       We sat down and he started the movie, the trailers flickered across the screen but I didn't watch them. I always skipped them and I would have told Marco to fast forward past them if I hadn't turned to see the cutest damn thing I'd ever seen.

Marco had sat there, eyes opened wide and mouth open in a big ass smile, and I’ll be damned if there wasn’t a Disney movie twinkle in his eyes as he watched those boring ass trailers. But fuck if all the blood didn’t rush to my cheeks, bubbling like hot springs right then and there. It was a trailer - a fucking trailer - but it made him happy, so I could sit through 15 minutes of trailers for movies that had come out over a decade ago.

As much as I loved Winnie the Pooh, it was painfully obvious how old the film was by the Coming Soon screen, a striped strip across the screen and the same music - definitely a 90’s film. Marco lapped it all up like a water starved plant in the desert, and I swear that he had leaned forward a centimeter with each passing trailer. Mulan. Mighty Joe Young. Lion King II: Simba’s Pride.  His face had gotten so close he looked pale as snow with the light from the television screen illuminating his face. He rocked on his butt, seated criss cross apple sauce (what a nerd). His face must have killing him because his smile started to slip down into a small simple one, just barely an upturning of the lips. Even that must have hurt too much because his lips sat in a straight line by the time the opening of our movie played, and the all too familiar song started playing.

.       The words flew straight out of my mouth, "Deep in the hundred acre woods, where Christopher Robin play”. I had shot a sideways grin at Marco and quirked an eyebrow. “Come on, Marco, I can tell you want to sing along. I won’t tell your jock friends.”

Marco gave a polite smile but declined, his eyes must have been worn out too, open so wide for so long because then they started to close some, droop even.

“You’ll find an enchanted neighborhood of Christopher’s childhood days”. I buckled in for the ride, and knew every single line, quoting them perfectly in time with the characters on the screen. Okay, you can call it dorky all you want but I call it connecting with a great movie, because ten minutes into the movie, I was up off my feet, mimicking everybody’s actions. I always did that when I watched the movie; it felt great and as if I was a part of the film itself.

I had been Pooh, going to ask Rabbit for some honey when there was unexpected singing.

I had seen the movie more than enough times to know that there wasn’t any singing at this point, and yet…

“Deep in the hundred acre woods, where Christopher Robin places.”

It didn’t sound like Pooh or any of his friends, and far too soft spoken.

“You’ll find an enchanted neighborhood of Christopher’s childhood days.”

I had stopped in mid knock and looked over the room, stopping when I found it was Marco’s. His gaze was steady, locked onto the television screen although he didn’t look present in the moment, his lips moved mechanically, as if working on muscle memory.

“A donkey named Eeyore is his friend, and Kanga, and little Roo”.

“Oi, Marco?” I had asked and took a few steps towards him.

“There’s Rabbit, there’s Piglet; and then there’s Owl.”

I had bridged the gap between us and waited for him to say something, acknowledge me, blink, something for fuck’s sake.

“But most of all, Winnie the Pooh.”

The faintest moment, but I had caught it. A catch in his voice that betrayed him before the tears came rolling down his cheeks. Fuck. How hadn’t I noticed it before?

“W-Winnie the Pooh, Winnie t-the P-Pooh, silly wil-”

I had caught him, question marks multiplied in my head as he tossed himself into my arms, sobbing. His arms wrapped around me and even in this moment were as strong as ever, and held me to him as if he was afraid I would float away otherwise. I eased into the embrace and held him back, rubbing unsure circles in his back, and waited until he managed to speak.

"I- I'm sorry."

Sorry? What Marco could have possibly done wrong was beyond me.

    Marco pulled away and sniffed his nose. "It's just, it would have been his birthday today."

His? Would have been? Shit, was there somebody I had forgotten? He- fuck. I knew it before the words came out his mouth. His step dad.

"He would have been fourty five today," he brought his sleeve up to catch the snot that dangled from his nose and waited for the hiccups that had come back in full bloom. "I just, I thought maybe it would be easier with company. A-and you liked Winnie the Pooh I thought and so m-maybe you wouldn’t mind watching. I j-just didn’t want to be alone today.I'm sure you must think that I'm a terrible person."

Well, fuck. What are you supposed to say when shit like this happens? I didn’t know what it felt like to lose a loved family member. I mean, my dad had left my mom shortly after that Halloween, but he still wrote me letters and sent me birthday gifts from time to time. I didn’t even know when or how his dad had died anything could only make it worse.

‘Think, Kirschtein.’

“He’s a kangaroo in a coat on a hot Australian summer afternoon.”

I don’t know where the fuck that came from - well that wasn’t true, it was what my mom had told me that Dad left and I blamed myself - but I couldn’t see how that would help Marco. However unexpected as it was, I think that was exactly why it made him laugh.

Marco’s shoulders shook and I could see his chest rippling with laughter. He laughed and laughed, his laughter filled the room and I didn’t mind it one bit because it was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. It felt amazing too, like one of his hugs, it wrapped around you and kept you there, so warm and welcoming. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when it stopped, although I guess that would have been kinda awkward just standing there while Marco laughed the whole day.

He wiped tears, this time of joy, from his face, took a deep breath to help steady his breathing and asked, “What was that?”

If Marco’s hugs are warm, then my cheeks were on fire as all color rushed and raged behind them. I brought my right hand up, resting it on the back of my neck and couldn’t bring myself to look Marco in the face. “That, um, my dad left. And I blamed myself for it, said if I hadn’t behaved so badly he would still be here. She had that big old mom smile, you know the type, and she told me : ‘It isn’t your fault. He was stinky.’ But that wasn’t enough for me, I still felt I was stinkier, so I asked her how stinky.”

My gaze had been fixed on Marco’s shoes but I slowly raised my gaze. “And she told me he was as stinky as a kangaroo in a coat on a hot Australian summer afternoon”. I hid my nose and mouth behind the crook of my elbow, shooting a glance Marco’s way.

He was laughing again, the little shit, but it was an improvement from the tears from before and his laughter was infectious. See, my laughter wasn't anywhere near Marco's; he sounded like a chorus of angels and I sounded like a pack of hyenas. Marco will argue otherwise, but I know for a fact that he stopped laughing because of my ridiculous peals of savannah predator noises.

.      It had been his turn to be nervous now and I knew because he rested his finger across the bridge of his nose. "So you're not mad? "

.      I swear my jaw dropped farther than Knob Hill, Marco never ceased to amaze me. "What the fuck, Marco? Why would I be mad at you?"

"Well, because I-"

"Dude, you're human.  Or at least I think you are, I really hope so or I might need to see the shrink for another reason."

Marco's eyebrow had quirked up.

.     I had shaken my head and hands , that was a conversation for a later time. Maybe.  

"That's not the point. Look, Marco, everybody needs comfort sometimes, even you Mr. Sunshine and Lollipops. You needed somebody there for you, that's fine. That's cool. "

I had rested my hands on his shoulder, my hands shaking. Fuck, I really didn't know where I was going with this. I swallowed the lump in my throat, "I'm sorry to hear about your step dad; I didn't know the guy, but if you like him he had to be something extra special."

.   Silence permeated the air for several minutes before Marco spoke. “Thank you.”

We left it at that - Marco wasn’t quite ready to tell more and he felt better anyways. We had both turned back to the movie, reciting lines and me up on my feet again, muscle memory performing the same actions on the screen. Marco had even joined in near the end and at the movie’s end, when we rewound the video, we tried to do them in reverse just as quickly. That didn’t work out too well, two minutes into it we both collapsed on the floor, grinning and laughing until our lungs ached.

It was barely one p.m. then and Marco’s mom wouldn’t be home until 8:00 so I stayed and we talked about anything and everything - except for his step dad, of course. I learned a lot more about Marco, my Marco, and he learned a lot about me. I learned that his favorite color was orange like the sunset (I cracked Peeta jokes at him until he was sick of even the word bread), I learned that he was terrified of  alien movies, I learned that he liked most any genre of music, and I learned that he preferred books over movies, but video games over books. I learned that he had a habit of quoting books at people; I learned that he preferred Shel Silverstein to Shakespeare; I learned that he loved brinner and that he knitted those ugly( sorry Marco, but it’s true) Christmas sweaters for his friends and family ever year.

We had talked and talked until we were both rasping, more in need of water than the Sahara Desert or California. By the time 8:00 rolled around, it felt like we had known each other all our lives, it was the quickest I had felt so comfortable with anybody and I hadn’t wanted to go home, but Marco invited me over next weekend.

And the next weekend.And the weekend after that. And after that. You get the point. Weekends quickly became our thing, we were either at his house, my house, or out on the town, but wherever we were, we were together.  After a year, we were together together.

It hadn’t been anything elaborate. He had walked up to me after my geography class, and did his nervous finger thing, his brown eyed gaze focused on the lockers to my left.

“Oi, Marco, what is it?”

He had taken a breath then exhaled loudly before quickly asking, “Would you like to go to the bowling alley this weekend? As...boyfriends?”

I sure as fuck hadn’t been expecting that and judging by his nervous quirks, I can guess that he hadn’t been expecting me to react the way I had. The freezing up at first bit probably spooked him, but when I told him that I would fucking love to (albeit a bit of stuttering) he blinked three times before he thanked me then the school bell rang and ruined any chances of having a further moment.

I was supposed to have met his mother that weekend since she managed to get the day off, but work called her in and money had been particularly tight at the time, so she managed a quick wave before she had to rush out.

We started walking down to the theatre since neither of us had a car and thus started our date. It was a really short date though, well, what you might call the actual date part; it lasted about as long as it took us to arrive at the theatre and some kid to come running and trip over Marco’s long ass legs. Marco being Marco, managed to catch the boy but in all of it landed hard on his arm with a sickening crunch. Then we were off to the hospital where he was told he would have to keep it in a cast for the next several weeks. After a couple hours, we just had to wait for his mother to arrive, and I took advantage of that time by doodling as many dicks as I could on my boyfriend’s cast, giving them bow ties because I, Jean Kirschtein , am a classy man.

I still didn’t get to meet Marco’s mom that night though he got to meet mine. I had been in the restroom and the two of them hit it off. Of course, Mom hadn’t known he was my boyfriend at the time so who knows if that would have gone differently, but they were chatting and smiling and laughing. We waited around a while longer, but Marco’s mom still hadn’t shown up and we needed to head home.

I didn’t get to meet Marco’s mom when I came to visit the next day or the next or at all for a very long time. It was a year later that I finally met Marco’s mom when she rang our doorbell, donned in all black clothing, tears already filling her eyes. The first words that she ever spoke to me other than, “Oh, hello Jean” were “He’s gone. Marco’s gone”.

 

July 15, 2011.

 

We had gone on a date to watch the new Winnie the Pooh movie on its premiere night and the entire date had been magical, I know that much, but the moments had been tarnished by that late night visit. Now I can only recall his mother bursting into tears clinging tight to me, that it was at least an hour before she was able to tell me what had happened. Marco had been driving home when some drunk crashed into his car, his brand new car that he had just gotten yesterday. His car that he wouldn’t have driven if his mother hadn’t insisted. It was that or no movie and we were both insistent on going to see it, so he drove the car both picking me up then dropping me off.

I can’t even stomach the film now because it all reminds me of that night, and I watch any other Winnie the Pooh film, every time I look over and expect to see Marco there watching the screen or watching me and laughing at me as I act out each action perfectly in time with the film. Each time I expect those bright brown eyes, crinkled just slightly at the corners because when Marco laughs, he laughs and his whole face is animated. However, at the end of the day. the only animated Marco could possibly be now is reanimated, and I’m sorry Marco, I love you, but zombies aren’t really my thing.

Funerals weren’t my thing either, they aren’t my thing. Never will be, but I had to go. I stood there silently in my black suit and listened to person after person speak about Marco. They all had such great things to say, but so many of them sounded so fake, like none of them had known Marco. They had said he was a brilliant man, that he had been a star on the team, how he was a selfless soul for helping that kid even though it banged up his arm. They had everything to say about his grades, his attendance and behavior, and his athletics, but they were still missing so much about Marco.

Some of them might have known that he had lost his step dad after a long battle with cancer; some of them might have known that his step dad’s hospital bills had devastated his family financially almost as much as his death had devastated them emotionally; some of them might have known that his mother worked long hours at three jobs to pay their bills but that wasn’t knowing Marco. None of them had known him like I had.

We had only had two years together other than that first meeting, but that first weekend was enough to feel that we’d known each other years, and each moment spent together after was just another new learning experience. What they didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that Marco  made song parodies of R&B songs to help him study for tests, that Marco had a Winnie the Pooh coloring page he kept folded up that he kissed then slipped underneath the pads in his football uniform for good luck before each game, that he had doodled on a top hat to the dicks after I had drawn on the bow ties, and named them Richard. They didn’t know that Marco still cringed slightly whenever people mentioned astrology because it reminded him of the Cancer star sign, and even though he knew it wasn’t the same, the word itself still had the power to knock him flat on his ass. They didn’t know that he had actually taught himself how to sew so that he could fix his clothing when it tore before his mother saw it and fretted about buying him a new one.

Marco wasn’t perfect like some formula you get in math, how they were depicting him right now, he was perfectly imperfect. In the midst of a video game, he had surprised me time and again with how creatively he could swear. He did it most absentmindedly then when he realized, he clapped a hand over his mouth and exclaimed, “Shit! Wait..fuck! Crap! I mean..dammit.” He gave up after that and sprawled back, controller abandoned to his side as he blushed redder than a tomato. He wasn’t as innocent as they might think either, in the year we had been dating he would taunt when he laid back with comments on the view as he looked up at my crotch. He had a habit of teasing and then popping in a Disney movie that killed my boners then he would laugh and we would cuddle.

Marco would eat the crust off of his sandwiches before he ate the inner part, and ate the little bits of popcorn before he munched on the big puffed center; he only did the laundry because he pretended that there was a monster in there thirsting for clothes, one that would devour him and his mother if not fed regularly. He woke in the morning and stretched like a cat, arms outstretched and butt up in the air then butt down as he shifted weight onto his hands, looking like a mermaid surfacing.

He was all of those things and so much more, not just the marks on his report card. He was the big things and all of the little things and they needed to know that, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Marco’s mother tried, but in the end she couldn’t. She had spoken at least a few good sentences or two before two nearby people came to help her off of the stage. I didn’t stay much longer than that because I couldn’t bare to see them bury Marco in the ground. I didn’t want to admit to myself that Marco was dead, that Marco could be dead.

I didn’t say anything at the funeral or afterwards; it wasn’t as if too many people were in the habit of talking to me. The jocks had stopped their bullying, as much as they had hated Marco standing against them, he still had undeniably been a great teammate and they, along with the whole school, grieved for the loss of Marco Bodt. I heard that his grave marker was one of the most beautiful, colorful, and decorated, his locker was too, but I didn’t know from experience.

Everybody eventually stopped trying to get words out of me, countless unsuccessful efforts do that. I think that even though we hadn’t had the chance to tell them, that they knew something extra special had been there between Marco and me, so they let it drop, gave me my space. I didn’t want space though, that was the thing, I needed space filled up, more specifically by Marco Bodt. I needed him to be there and hug me and tell me that it would be alright, that I would know what to do, that I always knew what to do. I needed him to be there to meet me for lunch and to walk up ahead to our spot under the trees and sit down, back rested against the tree and to pat the space beside him. I would look down at my hands and I needed his fingers to fill the spaces between them because his hand fit perfectly. I needed him to be there so I could tell him one last thing to his face, at least, something other than the “Go home already, you dork, it’s getting late”. I needed to tell him I love him.

I needed to tell him all of that and I aimed to when I walked into the cemetery five weeks after he had died. I psyched myself up for it as I walked down the aisles, no need to count over how many because they were right, it was the most vibrant marker out there. I would think that it might be uplifting, but it looked so festive and alive, so fitting for Marco in life, but now, now it just was a bitter reminder of the past and what had been.

It was dead silent in the cemetery and so was I, the words just piled up like a blockade in my throat and prevented themselves from coming out. I urged and urged but none of those predetermined words would come out, even though I had rehearsed them time and time again in my head.  I kneeled down beside it, and rested my hand lightly on it, it was cold to the touch and I couldn’t help but wonder how cold Marco’s body must be by now - the blood had to have all dried out by now, right? It felt like forever since that night.

 

“Forever, and ever is a really long time, Marco”.

 

The words came as a surprise to me but they worked to burst the walls of the Hoover Dam that had been holding back my tears this whole time. They rushed out, streaming down my face mixing with the snot that quickly came and streaked down from my nose. I buried my face into the far bottom of my palm and crouched forward almost into a ball, sobs wracking my body, my feet struggled to keep balance until finally I fell back on my ass.

Then amidst the echoes of my sobs, I heard a faint familiar voice sing back, “Jean, forever isn’t long at all, when I’m with you.”

I choked back the next sob and turned my head slowly then moved to rub my eyes; my vision had to be deceiving me, the tears blurring my vision because there was no way that this was real. Right there behind me, in the flesh, was Marco Bodt, looking exactly the same as he had when I had seen him off that night. There wasn’t any blood, fresh or crusted, all bones in place, no bruises at all. But maybe this was all just an illusion, and I just wanted to….just wanted…

“I want to call your name, forever,” I turned my whole body to face him now, trying to calm the hiccups s my breathing sought to return to normal. “And you will always answer, forever.” I pushed with my left hand and struggled to get back on my feet but fell backwards again.

Marco took several steps forward, offering his hand and I was wary of whether or not I should touch it, afraid that it would crumble away or disappear. He smiled so brightly though I couldn’t help but take his hand, and smile back at him once I was up on my feet again. I gazed into his bright gaze, my lips trembling as I sang the next words, “And both of us will be, forever you and me”.

He rested his hands on my shoulders before he crushed me into his chest and I could feel the vibrations and movement as he sang along with me, “forever and ever”.

We sang the note out fully then pulled back, both gazing at the other longingly. Marco’s hand traveled up from my shoulder to my face, resting on the side of it, then slowly, slowly traveling down to my chin until he tilted it up. His lips met mine and it felt so much more than a kiss, it was a message, a beautiful, sweet message that ended far too soon for either of ours liking.

Marco had been the one to pull back, his hands sliding back down again and linking with my own hands. His soft smile grew increasingly sadder as the wind started to pick up around us. He brought our hands up and kissed my hands, focus on our hands and sang softly, “I want to stay like this, forever,” he brought our hands back down again, “if only I could promise, forever”.

My hands darted out and pulled Marco close then refused to let him go. “I want to be with you, forever!” I pulled away, chin set, and looked him in the eye, determined.

The wind grew noticeably louder then his shoulder started to break into pieces and flutter away in the wind and I lunged to catch them, to catch him, but his hand caught my wrist, bringing both hands back down.

“ I want you right here beside me, forever!”

The smile on his face was so gentle, but how long until it flew away too? Gone with the wind, gone forever, gone somewhere, somewhere that didn’t matter because it wasn’t here.

“One thing you should know,” he bit his lip, fighting to keep his gaze on me, as his other shoulder and both sides dissolved and disappeared with the wind.

No, I knew what was coming. No, no, no, no fuck, no. Marco, just come to me, come with me and stay with me. You can’t go, we’re supposed to be together forever.

“No matter where I go, we’ll always be together.”

The wind howled now and swept the rest of Marco away, leaving behind the soft words.

“Forever and ever”.

 

 

 

 


End file.
